New Type 26 Frigate to be named HMS Birmingham

Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson has announced that a new Type 26 Frigate will be named HMS Birmingham.

Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said:

“Three of our nation’s ships have proudly borne the name Birmingham. Those ships won five battle honours. Today, in honour of this great city, we will be naming one of our eight Type 26 global combat ships HMS Birmingham.”

HMS Birmingham is the fourth of the UK’s eventual eight Type 26 frigates to be named, with HMS Glasgow, HMS Belfast and HMS Cardiff the first three to be built. The frigates will begin to enter service in the 2020s.

The MoD said in a release that all the ships are being constructed by BAE Systems on the Clyde in Scotland, where the project is guaranteeing 20 years of work and safeguarding over 4,000 jobs. HMS Birmingham will be part of the second batch of ships to be ordered in the early 2020s.

She will be the fourth ship to be named in honour of the city, with the first being launched in 1913 and playing a key role in the First World War. The last, a Type 42 destroyer, took part in a range of missions including safeguarding international shipping during the Iran-Iraq War and patrolling the Falkland Islands before leaving service in 1999.

To find out what the next 26 will be called we’ll have to wait until it’s announced where the Conservative party conference is next year if they are still in government. If labour are in power Corbyn will probably hand our defence budget to Hamas and Hezbollah. Glasgow, Cardiff, Belfast and now Birmingham, all big and important British cities, no doubt but what about an HMS London ? I know we have Westminster but it isn’t the same.

No naming convention for the Type 31s yet. The most likely options for a name scheme are alphabetical (should technically be E-class after the Darings, but we have survey ships using that convention, so F-class would probably be used) or mythology-based (especially likely if the BAE Leander design is chosen).

Just to clarify I think Gibraltar would be a fantastic name. The last HMS Gibraltar was never built.

And the last fourteen or so years of the last HMS Londonderry corresponded with the first fourteen years of the Troubles. But as the ship was already in service when ‘civil strife’ broke out and I think by that time we were beyond upsetting our Republican ‘friends’.

FWIW I would have preferred the second carrier to be called HMS Eagle.

Just to respond to David, I do agree. Gibraltar would be a fantastic name given the current political climate, and would do wonders for strengthening the bond. I do believe we should be able to name our ships after parts of our country or overseas territories despite the protests of the minority.

As much as I would like ‘Londonderry’ (as it would give two fingers to our Republican ‘friends’), I can’t see it happening. It’ll probably be another English town, Exeter would be nice.

As for another ‘A’ class, I was merely following the naming format from the ‘Arrowhead’ project; assuming that the lead ship would be ‘Arrow’, with the rest following. It would be a shame if they weren’t chosen; Sheffield, Coventry and Sir Galahad were renewed as names, but Antelope and Ardent were not.

I’m not a fan of BaE, but their Leander programme would put some historic names back into the fleet.

That is why we need more than 8 of these warships. Can we order in the Aussie variant which is a much more capable and heavily armed general purpose warship with good quality air defence and surface strike capabilities. Say 8 of the ASA optimised versions and 8 of the more capable Aussie version. Come on we should definitely be doing that.

So an additional 8 £1bn+ warships, and the only facility that could build them is fully booked for the next 2 decades. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love an additional 8 Type 26 ASW frigates, but there’s not really a need to make them a bit more capable for a extra cost.

The Hunter only has one real advatage over the T26: better radar, and for an ASW frigate that’s not really a massive deal. The other two minor advatages: ship mounted torpedoes, and technically 8 more strike lengh VLS but it also needs to accommodate AA weapons in those slots, while the T26 has 48 separate Sea Ceptor missiles. So the T26 wins in actual missile capacity, and only loses on hull mounted torpedo tubes, which aren’t particularly useful for modern ASW.

You won’t hear anything, BAe took 15m hit but I doubt anyone was fired. Not a big fan of the Leander design but I hope Cammell Liard get the T31 as I think they’ll do great job building them. Shame it wasn’t CL proposing Arrowhead.

Blame George Osborne for the slow build rate. The original plan was one a year but the Treasury wanted to minimise year on year expenditure. In the end it costs a lot more because a build rate this slow just isn’t efficient.

If you’re hoping for Ajax to be a submarine, unfortunately the last Astute has already been named HMS Agincourt. However, if we get a new Leander class, Ajax would definitely be high on the list due to the battle honours associated with the name, including Jutland and the River Plate.

Warship naming is always a subject for much debate. I knew the background of the naming history but of all the T45 names Duncan is the one that attracts the sniggers in the fleet. It could be worse …I served on Beaver and Brazen…Brazen had a helo called hussy and the wrens proudly declared themselves as Hussies when serving on board. As for the other…the US Navy loved us calling a ship Beaver ” you guys named your ship after p**sy”

Give the ships a number only and each has 3 crews assigned and the crews have the names.

So a T26 has a target crew size or 120 personnel and each has 3 crews

Crew 1. HMS Sheffield Crew 2. HMS York Crew 3. HMS Leeds

And you just rotate the guys through cycles to get harmonisation rates to a point where people like gunbusters want to stay (allied to improved conditions and pay of course).

To man all 8 ships its 2520 sailors, each crew gets 1 x 4 month slot at sea every year and 1 of the 8 is in refit/maintence at any given point in time which means we only need 21 crews. You can even go for a 2+1 configuration of 2 crews that swap 1 on /1 off and a standing training/shore crew for holidays etc and cover.

Lastly, you just give them their own flag, ships name plaque etc that they take on to the ship prior to deployment. New millennium perhaps time for a new way of doing things…

That’s… very radical indeed. Aside from the increase in sailors needed at a time when crewing the fleet is proving difficult, it clashes with the sense of “your” ship that makes big chunks of metal and machine feel like they matter. What you suggest makes for more of a rental mindset.

Vice-Admiral Sir Louis Le Bailly in a paper once explored the idea of turning crews into regiments. A ‘returning regiment’ would help to train the ‘deploying regiment’. And the former then would go on to leave, courses, etc. A new (or former) regiment would (re)form would be come the ‘deploying regiment’ and so on.

I think the current system works really. The USN experimented with USCG manning and it didn’t work very well.

Im delighted the name Birmingham is to return, city names are a good choice which helps to bond the Navy with the public. However I dont like the way polititans are starting to use the naming process for political means, obviously no coincidence the name Birmingham held back until the party conference( the name was decided along with the previous three). This is a dangerous path to follow as it will have a negative public effect when a particular town or region is out of favour to the incumbent government hence a truly traditional naval name will be overlooked. As an aside, I expect if the Leander project wins the T26 I expect a full range of Greek god’s will follow, not a bad choice as they will remain unpoltical. If Arrowhead win, I would like to see the return of Captain names or big cats.

For the T26’s it would be good to see an Exeter and Southampton back in the fleet. I understand the issue with London as I find it strange but then again Glasgow is not the capital of Scotland. It is also possible that although London is a city it is also technically as far as I am aware in naming terms a county, the last HMS London that I know of was a county class cruiser. So possibly that is the issue. I would love to see a Gibraltar also, that would stir things up a bit. As for the naming of the T31s there are many routes to go down, Admirals, Battles, Commonwealth Countries etc. The idea of Greek Gods really tickles me a bit imagine an Ajax and Achilles teamed up with Exeter and sent to the Falklands as the South American Squadron. That would be fun. I suppose for the T31’s it will be the message we want to convey, will it be one of reuniting old bonds then if so possibly HMS Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Gibraltar and Jamaica could be good for the first five. If named after Admirals then Howe, Anson, Nelson, Rodney and Hood would also be good. As for battles we have so many that we could name a complete fleet after. But I still like the idea of Ajax and Achilles with an Exeter as flag, with Apollo, Arethusa and Aurora for the other three names, sorry folks just my humor.

interestingly in recent times MOD have wandered from the traditional warship names, frequently they are adding additional names to established linage, examples being Agincourt to the A class subs, Tyne and Forth to traditional River class escorts, Tideforce to the tide class RFAs, Duncan a traditional Captain name to the Daring class T45, and if course QE and POW, The first time such capital ship names have been used amongst carriers. I think the revival of colony / dominion names would be a bridge too far, politically fraught as who gets named and who is left out? If they are reinstated it will probably be connected to trade deals!! He the new Dreadnought submarines: I think Warspite, Valiant and Courageous would be most appealing.

Now that it has been announced that the T26 eill be based at Devonport, I find it quite ridiculous that Portsmouth city council ate kicking up a fuss about ” losing the T26 frigatrs”. 1. They never had them. 2 portsmouth has the lions share: 2 carriers, all the t45, mine hunters, opvs. Yet Devonport only has the Two assault ships,( 1 in reserve) three survey vessels and 8 frigates. Surely Portsmouth can see the benefits of keeping Devonport open and can continue with it’s excellent frigate expertise. There is still enough work for both.